Twelve major joint exercises one-upped the 11 of a year earlier.
"In fiscal year 2015," he announced, "we conducted 75 joint operations, 12 major joint exercises, and 400 security cooperation activities".
And this year he said: "[W]e conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and 363 security cooperation activities in fiscal year 2014".
His exact words last year: "In Fiscal Year 2014, we conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and 595 security cooperation activities".
"In Fiscal Year 2014, we conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and 595 security cooperation activities," he told the senators.
That comes on top of decisions to delay the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets and to pull out of a major joint military exercise next month with the Egyptian Army.
Israel and the United States agreed last week to postpone a major joint military exercise planned for the spring, and Mr. Barak told Israel's Army Radio on Wednesday that any decision to attack Iran was "very far off".
Fourteen major joint military exercises between Africom and African states are also due to take place this year; and a recent press release from the Africa Partnership Station – Africom's naval training programme – explained that 2013's operations will be moving "away from a training-intensive program" and into the field of "real-world operations".
The number of major joint field exercises U.S. personnel engaged in with African military partners inched up from 10 in 2013 to 11 last year.
Last year, in its ever-expanding operations, AFRICOM planned 14 major joint-training exercises on the continent, including in Morocco, Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, Senegal, and Nigeria.
